54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: May 29 2009
I currently have a list of 54 different suggestions (non-drug) to lower blood pressure. As part of this blog, I want to work my way through the list and give you my impressions and thoughts on this list. My list was composed roughly in the order that I found them. Many of these points have the potential, on average, to lower blood pressure by 2 to 5 points. My idea here is that although each one might have a small effect, combinations of 7 or more of them may allow for substantial reductions in blood pressure. I tried to include only items on the list for which at least one scientific study has found evidence of an improvement in blood pressure. The advantage of having many suggested possibilities to lower blood pressure is that it provides variety in the approach. If one set of possibilities doesn’t work, you can try others.
I once read that a medical researcher suspected that there were up to about 20 different causes of high blood pressure. If so, then it isn’t surprising that some drugs and some treatments don’t work for all folks.
1. Use RESPeRATE (Rr)
My impression from the studies is that the majority of folks (more than half) get a positive response from using RESPeRATE. That aside, it’s highly possible that there are folks that do not get any benefit from using the Rr. The most likely cause in these cases is that they have some cause not effectively managed by Rr and not that they are incorrectly using the machine. Still, when I first started using the machine, I didn’t notice any benefit for the first 3 weeks. I took my blood pressure before and after each session, and sometimes BP went down, sometimes it went up, and sometimes it stayed the same, but an hour later my blood pressure seemed unchanged.
Sometime in the 3rd week, however, I began to relax and I didn’t try to perfect the process. I simply began to relax, enjoy it, and I didn’t worry so much about keeping in perfect time with the machine. Presto — after each session my blood pressure dropped sharply. Then, when I had high blood pressure, I would do a session and drop the blood pressure. If it still wasn’t down enough I’d do another session, and drop it a bit more, and if I had time, I’d even do a third session and drop it further. This gave me a kind of positive feedback loop. I began to feel that I could do something to control my blood pressure value. I then started to notice that my readings an hour later were lower, and over the next few weeks began to see my daily readings dropping. Currently, I try to do one 10 minute session per day. On holidays, and weekends, I try to get in two sessions.
2. Lower Your Salt Intake
Get your salt (sodium) intake down below 1000 mg per day. (The actual number seems to be somewhat in debate– 1000 mg might be too low, and different individuals may need to hit different values to have an effect). My point here is mostly to cut down on your salt. Most prepared foods have some salt, so you have to be careful when trying to add up the amounts – it’s easy to miss substantial amounts of salt. Of course, the body has a need for salt, so I wouldn’t suggest that anyone go on an ultra low salt diet. Be warned that many types of bread have 100 mg per slice, some cheeses have 400 mg of salt or more per slice, and some canned goods contain up to 95 0mg per tin.
Salt has been a somewhat controversial issue — is it the salt itself or is it other ingredients in the salty foods associated with higher blood pressure? Many highly processed foods have a high salt content and low nutritional value. So, perhaps it isn’t the salt reduction itself, maybe the nutritional improvement from substituting other healthier foods is what makes the difference. Nevertheless, there is a theory that excess salt damages the cardiovascular system over time. Studies show that in about half of the cases of hypertension, the reduction of salt in the diet proved to be helpful. The elderly and African Americans are the most likely to benefit from restricted salt intake.
My personal observation is that ingesting a high dosage of salt (2000 mg+ per day), if I have several back-to-back meals that are loaded with salt, my blood pressure will rise 20/20 points and stay up for 3 days. On the other hand, if I get my salt down to a more reasonable level, I haven’t found any improvement from dropping it further. I do feel that salt is somehow hard on the body and it probably does put stress on the cardiovascular system. It seems from reading the medical literature that if you follow a low salt diet for extended periods of time, like years, that there is a kind of accumulative health benefit. Again, the bulk of the benefit may come from the fact that low salt foods tend to be healthier as a whole, rather than the negative impact of the salt itself. My personal thought is that both effects are operating, salt itself is harmful in some way, and the healthy food - less processed, less chemicals of low salt food, also improves overall health.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2288755
Breathing, blood pressure and blogging
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Mar 24 2009
Who would think that breathing slowly would reduce blood pressure? On the surface it seems unconnected with the phenomena in question. However, if one was to dig deeper and research the subject, one finds lots of reasons to think that it might.
Of course, the ultimate test for a scientist is to actually try it. More than just try it. In the scientific study we have to control for random factors, control for biases, control for Hawthorne effect, placebo effect, and other experimental risks. But the beginning of science is not in the controlled, double blind randomized study. No — the beginning of science is in the world of possibilities. In the realm of possibility, ideas and action, mind and body, dreams and reality blurr. You see in order to discover something new, we have to invent and sustain frameworks that bring forth possibilities.
I had been feeling extremely tired. By the time I came home from work, I was exhausted and had to lie down after supper. I didn’t seem to have any energy, and at the end of the day I would have a horrible headache. Because I was feeling so poorly, I went to my doctor, and he ordered a bunch of tests. Naturally he took my blood pressure, said it was fairly high and sent me for some more tests including a chest X-ray for the possibility of an enlarged heart. After several appointments, he concluded that I was suffering from high blood pressure — it was running something like 160/90. He suggested that I cut back on salt, lose some weight, get more exercise and tried me on some BP reducing drugs. Almost immediately I began to feel better, my energy returned the headaches disappeared.
I started tracking my blood pressure, and sure enough losing some weight, cutting back on salt, and increasing exercise, I managed to get my blood pressure under control. After a year, the doctor took me off the medication. And for next 2 years I managed ok. However, he had me continue tracking my blood pressure, doing a daily reading at home, and he kept following me.
About 2 years later, my blood pressure rose again, and I was back on drugs. I experimented with different drugs that he put me on. I discovered that diuretics had almost no effect on my blood pressure but that the ACE inhibitor worked wonders. One ACE inhibitor pill and my blood pressure would drop and stay down for a day and half. A year after that, my blood pressure rose some more. I cut out all the salt I could, I doubled my exercise, I lost another 5 pounds. My blood pressure moved down a bit, but not that much and I was on an even higher dosage of drugs. I didn’t like it, it was costing me money, and all this drug taking, I didn’t really want to admit that I was sick, but it was clear that I was. I had to admit that I had a form of cardiovascular disease.
For most of my life I’ve been a process improvement expert. Where others see no hope of change or improvement, in my training in physics, theoretical and in mathematics, I have learned to solve problems. I didn’t understand blood pressure, and I soon found out neither did my doctor. Even more, as one dug into the literature on blood pressure, the mechanisms for blood pressure were complex and varied. Your blood pressure varies rapidly as you stand up or sit down, lie down, or jump up. Your blood pressure responds to emotions, to exercise, to exertion, to blood sugar levels, chemicals in water, to stress, to sickness. My mind was spinning. There seemed to be so many mechanisms of control, and the entire system was so complex. Why do folks develop high blood pressure? What triggers it? What can be done about it?
Being a mathematician, I was running my blood pressure in a control chart – a kind of time-series graph with moving averages and control limits measuring variability. It measures the variability and is precise way of determining points of change and exact levels of blood pressure over a period of time.
A friend suggested that I try eating celery and button mushrooms. So, I went to the store bought two weeks worth of mushrooms and big bag of celery. One two inch stick of celery three times a day, and one mushroom with every meal. I was amazed when in few days, I discovered that 10 points had been chopped off the top of my blood pressure and 5 points off the bottom. This change was almost as large as I was getting from some of my medications. Thus, began my quest to discover what works. I began to try different things, and to see the effects.
I’ve set myself on a goal… to become drug free and to control my blood pressure. Purpose, Vision and Commitment — these are the components of goal setting. I haven’t yet obtained my goal … I might never make it. But I know I’ve made a difference. I discovered that there are things that I can do to improve my health, and do it dramatically. And, they don’t have to involve high cost drugs with nasty side effects. They can be as fun as drinking a cup of tea, or sitting back for half hour of relaxing music.
Please relax, sit back and enjoy my journey into the world of high blood pressure. Over the next few months, I hope to inspire you to see your blood pressure as a challenge, and to push the limits of science, to understand more, to do more, to try the impossible, and beat the odds. Hope you will join with me in this journey. Along the way, you’ll learn a bit about me, and maybe I’ll learn a bit about you.
